Blog entry for:

as a firm foundation upon which to build my life. before i get anyone confused, the FAITH i speak of here, is the FAITH in the recovery program that has brought me to this point. it is that FAITH that builds and sustains my life and i have FAITH, that is i do what i was taught to do, across the course of my recovery journey, i will be able to make the decision to stay clean, just for today. many misunderstand me, when i say i work a FAITH-based program and that is okay. to be very clear, my FAITH is put into the process of the recovery fellowship that is my home. sure there is some POWER that fuels my recovery, BUT without the program, i would have never gotten to this place at all. i am quite certain, that even though it was not by choice i arrived in the rooms of the fellowship, it is my choice that i stay in the rooms.
it has been one heck of a twenty-four, from being called an idiot by one of my customers, to hosing a testing environment by trying to do something after 3 PM on a Friday afternoon. all is well, on this cool and cloudy summer day, even me. sure i want to be a whole lot of other things and DESIRE still drives many of my decisions, specifically the DESIRE to look good, hence my fat-fingered attempt to fix something before anyone saw it on Monday morning. there is HOPE for someone like me after all, and that HOPE is the precursor to my FAITH.
the progression of my recovery program started with FEAR. FEAR of relapse, so i was diligent for many years, working steps, doing service, and implementing spiritual principles in my life. FEAR kept me clean. FEAR was the driving force behind all of my recovery process, and FEAR trapped me in a life that was not as happy and joyous and free ans i desired. i, however saw no way out and accepted that this was how it was going to be. being stuck, sucked.
somewhere in my third set of steps, i came to see that yes i could work the program out of FEAR of relapse and that would demonstrate courage. as noble as i told myself that was, i knew it would not sustain me. as i sought a new way of looking at my life in recovery, i realized that was once a burden imposed upon me from the powers that be, was now a choice. that choice, such as it is, is the result of allowing my foundation top strengthen and grow, by application of the program in my life. as my FEAR of relapse morphed into the HOPE of staying clean as the driving force behind my recovery, i became a bit lighter and a whole lot less serious about HOW i thought things worked. that HOPE allowed me the freedom to dig a bit deeper, let go of everything i thought was true and right in my recovery program and examine where i was going, in the context of where i had been. all the evidence pointed to my ongoing recovery journey, based on spiritual principles, as the foundation of this new life and i found myself expressing a gratitude for what i could not feel, see or even explain, which led to the final transformation of HOPE into FAITH. here i sit today, secure that the foundation i have built across the decades can withstand the storms of life, because i still believe in maintaining what i have built. i have not “got” by any means, but i have got the notion that staying clean is the certainly what allows me the FREEDOM to choose.
as i sat in the meeting yesterday, listening to two of my peers speak of being powerless over “all mind and mood altering substances,” i was struck by the fact, that was once where i was, and i certainly could go there again. since i accept that my use of mind and mood altering substances was a symptom of a far deeper and more serious problem ⇛ addiction and that addiction was what i was actually powerless against, i have been on an incredible journey to the core of my being. as a result, i can share about being where they are, just as i can offer my peers who are “stuck” an example of one way to get freed. my freedom toady is built on a foundation that has been built on a long string of “just for todays.” i am grateful that this stubborn, arrogant and closed-minded addict decided that maybe he had more than one thing incorrect in his worldview and decided to go about correcting it, just for today.

∞ DT ∞